


it's in your hands

by atlas (songs)



Category: Gangsta. (Manga)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows. She knows her mind is a half-thing, misty and faraway. She knows—in the grand scheme of everything, she is a woman lost: in her own head, in the blood-realm that is Ergastulum, in the hallway of Benriya’s cramped apartment, just outside of Nicolas Brown’s unlocked bedroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's in your hands

Nicolas is on bed-rest, Worrick is out at work, and Alex—

 

Alex is pacing.

 

She takes a step forward, and then another back. Her patent-shoes begin to pinch at her feet; thoughtlessly, she kicks them off. _You’ve survived through worse, Alex Benedetto,_ she thinks to herself. She’s being silly—she knows as much. But even so, she can’t bring herself to breach the line that’s long since been set, between her and—

 

She swallows. Continues to pace.

 

Worrick’s voice floats through her thoughts, _Take care of him for a bit, ne, Al-chan? He really took a beating, this time._

 

Alex sighs. Perhaps Nina would’ve been better suited for this. No. Nina _definitely_ would’ve been better suited for this. But Nina is all the way at the clinic and Alex is _here,_ present but not—skin and soul but not quite _solid._

She knows. She knows her mind is a half-thing, misty and faraway. She knows—in the grand scheme of everything, she is a woman lost: in her own head, in the blood-realm that is Ergastulum, in the hallway of Benriya’s cramped apartment, just outside of Nicolas Brown’s unlocked bedroom.

 

See, she isn’t bad at this sort of thing. Gentleness. Caretaking. But she’s bad with Nicolas, she decides. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so afraid to just _knock,_ and be _done with it._

( _Otherwise, she wouldn’t keep the book of sign-language hidden beneath her bed, behind her back. Never spoken, only studied._ )

 

 _He’s sick,_ she reasons, _bruised and bandaged to the throat. He won’t see me there. In and out, I just have to check on him—_

Decision made, Alex takes in a tinny breath, then storms straight into the room.

 

_Please be sleeping, please be sleeping, please be…_

Her gaze shifts to the curl of limbs on the bed.

 

_He’s—_

“Oh,” Alex murmurs. _Oh_.

 

He’s trembling.

 

Alex stares, thoughts sifting slowly, like wading through water—until the current hits. She resurfaces with word-glimpses, with edges of conversation: _fever, struggling to breathe, nightmares, blood, blood, blood—_

She rushes forward, grabs the wet-cloth on the night-stand. Nicolas is turning under the blankets. Rustling. And suddenly, Alex is seeing someone smaller—not a man, but a boy. A boy with a bird-voice.

 

 _Onee-chan,_ the voice says.

 

And then Alex’s eyes go clear. The frail, frail image fades from her mind, parts like wind. She straightens, letting the memory taper. Her hands, though, remain in that old, crescent-moment— they wring blood and sweat from the cloth in her grasp, before pressing it to the side of the boy’s face—no, to _Nicolas’ face—_

 

A red, bandaged hand surges upward, all bones and vice as it twines around her wrist. Nicolas’ gaze is hooded, galena-dark. His grip is neither rough nor gentle. The cloth falls onto the bed. His mouth works around what might be words, but nothing comes.

 

Alex says, “Please,” but Nicolas does not let go. He has a strange gleam to his face, like he isn’t fully seeing her.

 

He’s never fully seen her, actually. Nicolas Brown is all walls, when it comes to Alex. And walls work both ways. Once upon a time, she’d mused over that distance. Now she only wonders—

 

Which one of them is hiding?

 

 _Not me,_ she wants to say, _I’m through with running. I’m through with regretting._

( _Onee-chan,_ echoes the memory-voice. Alex bends to it, like a song.)

 

Gently, gingerly, she drapes her free hand over Nicolas’, over the finger-cage on her wrist. He pulls away in an instant, as if scalded, and Alex smiles, despite herself. She thinks back to the book, the signing-book, to the words and to the hands. Always the hands. Alex has learned to speak with many parts of her body, but rarely, rarely with her hands.

 

( _After all, no one... No one had ever tried to listen to what she’d had to say._

_But now, maybe—just maybe—)_

 

It’s messy. Her signing is graceless with impulse; she raises a hand to her face, bending all the fingers to cradle her cheek-- except for the index, which she presses to her temple. A second later, her hand drops to her stomach, and then she clasps her palms together, meeting Nicolas’ eyes shyly.

 

 _Trust,_ she’s trying to say. She points to herself, like an afterthought. _Trust me._

She doesn’t quite know what to expect, afterward. Perhaps an insult to her shoddy signing. Maybe a glare, or a laugh. But none of those things come. In fact, nothing really happens at all.

 

Nicolas’ next motion is so minute, so gossamer, that Alex would later believe she might've imagined it. But here, and now, Alex sees Nicolas nod, only once. His expression, for a split-second, is achingly gentle. Unguarded.

 

Alex takes a step forward. And then another.

 

_Trust me._

It’s a start.

 


End file.
